


It Could Have Waited

by Xenafox



Category: Tiger & Bunny
Genre: Car Accidents, Coping, Death, M/M, Shame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-10
Updated: 2015-01-10
Packaged: 2018-03-06 23:13:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3151892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xenafox/pseuds/Xenafox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of them ‘cautionary’ type stories in a way, and also, what’s a hero to do when he can’t actually DO anything?</p><p>Sometimes terrible things just happen…</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Could Have Waited

The roads were a little slick from the light cold rain and he was running late, but Barnaby still drove slow. It was unlike him to arrive to a date tardy – but what was he supposed to do? The traffic in that part of town was much slower than he had bargained for, and he had stayed with the children until the last possible moment. Kotetsu would understand. 

However, being that Barnaby never ran late, he would worry too. He'd have to call him at the next red light. It would be smarter to pull over but he could not afford to lose the time. 

Luckily, as he got on the bypass, traffic started to move a little faster. It still wasn't the best but in that weather and in the dark he couldn't get too upset. Getting impatient would do absolutely nothing for him. All he could do was focus on the flow of cars, some of which were driving a little recklessly so he had to be careful. Turning the radio on low helped a little, but he did feel stressed still about being late.

It happened so fast-

The car in front of him, a blue station wagon with a pawprint bumper sticker, started to swerve. It was a minor thing and he didn't think too much of it due to the slippery conditions. A second later it swerved again, and too much. The blue car crossed into other lane as another car approached far too quickly. A gray van in a huge hurry was next to Barnaby to pass him. In a split second it slammed into the blue car. 

There was a tire screech, a frenzy of honking horns, and a sickening crunch. Barnaby barely even heard it over the blood thumping in his ears as he yelled and slammed on the brakes without thinking, also trying to steer away from the disaster. Without any warning he lurched forward painfully as someone crashed into the back of his little red car, his head barely missing the windshield as all he could see were the various headlights and brake lights of the cars around him.

If there were other sounds he didn't really hear them. His head was spinning and everything sounded muffled. His neck hurt. His body was in panic and as he slowly came to, he was surprised he hadn't activated his powers. Later he might reflect on how that was an improvement.

His mind was becoming aware of the situation as he heard screaming. Barnaby jolted, ready to move and help, and pain shot through him. Oh, yea, he was just in an accident. His seatbelt was tight on him, way too tight, and he struggled to undo it. It wasn't damaged. He tried to work out how that was so and remembered he was only rear-ended so it wouldn't be damaged. 

Should it really be SO hard to process thoughts? 

Perhaps so. 

As he pushed open his door and scrambled out of his car he had to also balance against it due to how dizzy he felt again upon standing up. God his neck really hurt, and he realized his legs did too. The cold air helped a little. It wouldn't for long.

His vision seemed to swim before him and he could make out the terrible accident next to him; the front of the blue car messed up and the passenger door of the gray van smashed and crunched in. Both cars were terrible looking; someone was crying. 

Barnaby snapped into hero mode. What was he thinking, not doing so beforehand? There were people there, and they were hurt! He rushed forward to the blue car and nearly crumpled to the ground doing so – his legs were in a lot of pain, and it was perhaps more slippery than when he had left the orphanage. But he gritted his teeth and kept moving. 

The blue car was empty, and he could see a girl standing in front of it crying. One hand covered her forehead, the other clutched a sleek white phone. Her arm looked bloody, but she wasn't reacting to it. Maybe in the trauma she didn't even notice it. Another person approached from a nearby car to talk to her. 

There was a cry for help. 

Barnaby jumped as someone touched his shoulder. “Hey, man, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, we didn't mean to hit you, my buddy is in so much pain, we called an ambulance, hey, are you listening?”

No, he really wasn't. Barnaby caught some of the words and looked over his shoulder at the young man behind him, but he heard the cry for help again and jerked out of his grasp. It was coming from the van and he hurried over as fast as his injured legs would allow. 

There was crying and screaming from the driver's side and he saw a woman, a pretty young woman with jet black hair that seemed to travel down to her waist. He couldn't see much more. She was in her seat and crying even as someone had opened her door and was trying to coax her out. She was shaking the shoulder of -of

It was hard to see in the window, but he could. There was a man in the passenger side, older than her with white hair and a plaid shirt. At least, that's what he thought he saw. There was too much of a mess.

He was looking at a bloodied corpse and the woman was becoming more hysterical and Barnaby didn't know what to do. He usually reacted so instantly, but so far he had sort of wandered the scene like a zombie. The man was definitely dead. His face was crushed. It was horrifying. 

From behind him he heard that male voice again. “Hey, you're Barnaby! The hero! Help!”

“I-”

“Yea, help!” someone else said, and Barnaby realized how many people had begun to crowd around the scene, watching him, staring at the cars, like a spectacle. Anyone still driving by was probably rubbernecking. 

How COULD he help? The man was dead, the accident already happened, and...and he had a bit of an idea as the gears in his brain tried to turn. “I...who here is injured!?” he asked, yelling. 

“My buddy man, I told you!” The young man again. 

“This young lady's father!” answered the person from the other side of the van. 

“She is!” Someone else, standing next to the girl clutching the phone but when Barnaby looked to her, she shook her head, as if telling him nevermind. 

“My buddy's head is bleeding!” 

That kind of solved it, and Barnaby paused before speaking, watching his foggy breath form with every exhale. It was cold. He needed to get the injured somewhere safe. “Then I will take him to the hospital.” All he had to do was use his powers. 

“But what about her father!?”

“My dad! Please help him!”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “I can't!” he said, pointedly looking away when he reopened them. “I can't, he's...”

“Help him!” she screamed, and some yelled at him to do so, but many of the onlookers smartly stayed quiet. 

“Dude's dead!” said the young man again and his phrasing was a little too harsh. “My buddy has a chance, please-!”

And that was it. With his thinking a little more clear, at least for the moment, Barnaby activated his powers. His legs stopped hurting, he focused better, and he had to do what he had to do. He could do nothing for the dead, and likely nothing to comfort the deceased man's daughter. But he could help someone, and he rushed to the car behind him. 

The front of the car was crunched up against his car, and he hated seeing that. But cars could be fixed. People couldn't. He wrenched open the driver's side door where he saw a man sitting. His eyes were closed and he was unconscious, his head bled and his arm looked horribly broken. He was alive, though.

Barnaby knew there were procedures for moving the wounded, and he removed him as carefully as he could before shifting him into a safer hold. He looked around to determine the closest emergency room, and took off. 

It took him nearly his whole five minutes before he reached one. For a city with lots of pain, it didn't have nearly enough medical centers. But he got to one that was actually fairly close to where Kotetsu used to live. It was bronze stage and not the highest level of care, but it'd do just fine. 

Kotetsu...

He needed to call him, to let him know he was okay, that it all would be okay. He needed to reach him. 

He managed to lay the man across seats in the empty waiting area of the emergency room as a nurse dashed around the desk to assist. All Barnaby was able to say was “bad accident” before the pain came back again, followed by shivers from rushing in the cold air, and finally, exhaustion from the shock. 

Barnaby passed out right there. 

 

\---------

“Oh God, they said you went from the car crash to the hospital, I was so worried!”

Barnaby found himself in a gentle but eager hug as he stood up from the hospital bed. His body ached vaguely but he was able to heal himself somewhat once he woke up and was waiting for Kotetsu. He slowly hugged him back, his mind not all there. That wasn't physical thing, but a mental thing. 

“You didn't show up, then I saw the news, I was worried, worried, I mean I figured if you left and brought someone with you, you were okay. I saw your car and it'll be okay but two of the other cars involved and I-” Kotetsu broke his rambling to kiss Barnaby all over his cheeks and when he stopped Barnaby could see the stress on his face. 

He cupped Kotetsu's cheek. “I'm fine,” he told him, knowing he put his partner through quite a bit of distress. 

Kotetsu stared at him, and then asked the big question: “Are you sure?”

No, no he wasn't, and Barnaby tore his gaze away. All the emotions, everything he had started to feel during the trauma of the aftermath, it hit him hard. Like being rear-ended, again, but with less shock and more gloom. 

“Kotetsu, what happened to the man I brought in?”

“Concussion, but he's okay.”

“And...that man died...”

“Yes?”

“What caused the accident?”

“Oh.” Kotetsu sighed and rubbed Barnaby's arms. “The girl who caused the whole thing was texting. Something about picking up pizza...she's a wreck, Bunny. And angry as I am that she caused a terrible accident that you could've...well, I feel for her. She's in a bad way and will be for a while.”

His response was automatic. “She killed somebody.”

Kotetsu blinked. “Yes...she did. It's so sad, but, it was an accident...” 

Barnaby didn't care for the sympathy Kotetsu was directing toward the girl. He'd seen him scold people for doing wrong before. It wasn't that he didn't understand why Kotetsu was being soft, though. “And I couldn't help.” 

Kotetsu paused, and then took his hand, gently leading him to the bed he had just crawled out of. Barnaby at first didn't move, but with a little tug he let Kotetsu tempt him over. Kotetsu sat him next to him, brushed his blonde hair out of the way, and nuzzled him. “It wasn't your fault. It wasn't your fault at all.”

Those words just broke him, and the tears started flowing. Barnaby surprised himself with how fast they welled up and began flowing down his cheeks. But he had failed. He really felt he failed and he was the big, talented hero. He was the 'amazing rookie' even years later. Kotetsu had lost people to a bad guy, and as a unit they didn't always save everyone because it was...it was big. He had lost to a criminal or two but...

A car crash was a setting where he had no bad guys, no criminals to fight and he should have been able to do something. Kotetsu put his arm around him and pulled him close; Barnaby sobbed into his neck. His whole body shuddered and he choked and coughed as he cried. His emotions were high and out of control. It didn't matter that the man never had a chance, that he was probably dead before Barnaby had left his car. 

He'd been useless. 

“I couldn't help, I didn't help, she wanted me too, the people around me wanted me to...”

“You did nothing wrong,” Kotetsu whispered to him, soothingly as he held Barnaby against him as best he could. He shifted so Barnaby had to lift his head and studied his face. Then Kotetsu used a finger to wipe away Barnaby's tears. 

It did little good because those tears just kept coming. “I couldn't help. Such a simple thing, just some cars, just some girl and her phone...”

“An accident. You can't prevent an accident, or they wouldn't be accidents...and you can only do so much about the results. You didn't fail anything.”

“I failed,” he argued, and buried his head in his neck again. “I couldn't...” And for a moment he felt he must feel the way Kotetsu did when he messed up. The way he did years ago when he lost a murderer, and woke up in a pile of garbage. He was surprised Kotetsu ever told him that because of how it felt thinking about at the moment. 

It was terrible, and even worse to know a life and a family member was lost and yet there he was, sobbing like HE was the one that mattered, even though he didn't. From a top hero to a letdown...

Even Kotetsu's gentle kisses and soft words couldn't chase away the shame. 

\------

'Hero Involved in Multicar Accident – One Man Dead' the newspaper headline read. 

“If he's such a big hero, why didn't he save that guy?” Someone asked on a talkshow during the day. 

“I don't know those people involved, but BARNABY BROOKS JR. was in that accident!” Another useless comment. 

“I think the heroes should run a campaign based on texting and driving. It's the least they could do after one being involved in the incident? Well, I know he wasn't texting, but...”

Barnaby sighed and turned off the television while he sipped his morning coffee. He felt somewhat better, but not complete. 

The only thing that helped arrived as two strong arms encircled him from behind, pulling him against a warm chest. “Don't listen to them, Bunny. We've got another day of saving people ahead of us, you know?”

“I know,” Barnaby said, melting back into Kotetsu. 

“We'll do good, too. I know we can.” A kiss was pressed to the back of his head and Barnaby closed his eyes.

He preferred to stay there in that moment, and sink into Kotetsu's arms, where he could do no wrong and shut out those unhelpful comments. Unfortunately, that wouldn't be an option. He'd have to suck it up, get dressed, and go out to face the day.

And that was exactly what he was going to do.


End file.
